What Works in Reducing Inequalities in Child Health

What Works in Reducing Inequalities in Child Health

The UK has a deservedly strong reputation for work on understanding social inequalities in health. But there is some way to go in ensuring that research and other types of knowledge are used to red... Les mer

What Works in Reducing Inequalities in Child Health

The UK has a deservedly strong reputation for work on understanding social inequalities in health. But there is some way to go in ensuring that research and other types of knowledge are used to reduce inequalities in child health. This revised and updated edition of an important report looks at macro public policy interventions, community interventions, and individual level interventions in a variety of settings, and for a range of populations: infancy, early years, childhood and adolescence, and those with particular needs including looked after children. It considers 'what works' in practice. There are new case studies, updated research, and reference to cost effectiveness - particularly relevant for doing the right thing in a climate of austerity. Drawing on evidence from the UK and beyond, the book presents these in an accessible form not just for those who make decisions now, but also for the students of today who are the decision makers of tomorrow.

Introduction; Inequalities and health; What are the causes of the causes of ill health and inequalities in health?; What do health inequalities mean for children?; Why do inequalities matter?; Poverty, inequality and the NHS; Death and disease in childhood; Policy reports and the importance of prevention; What works?; Research, policy and practice; And when there is no evidence?; What kinds of studies help us understand what works?; The challenge of evaluation at a local level; Does it work? How can we design and deliver effective services?; Systematic reviews; The contribution of different research designs; An assets-based approach drawing on lay and scientific evidence; What doesn't work?; Making it work;What works in early life? Infancy and the pre-school period.

Helen Roberts is a medical sociologist at UCL Institute of Child Health, London and an Honorary Research Fellow with Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. She set up and ran the Child Health Research and Policy Unit at City University London, spent a decade running R&D with Barnardo's, is a non-executive director of NICE and a member of research committees in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Her publications span the distance between the academic and the popular, from systematic reviewing in social science and policy, through studies on inequality, to recording the voices of those who experience its effects, from residents of Glasgow housing estates to children talking about safety and risk. Lukk